Bitter Woman

Keith is watching football. LSU vs. West Virginia. God. I hate football.

I shouldn't be bitter.

I'm not. I Am Not A Bitter Woman.

The thing is, we had a very short courtship. So it came as something of a surprise that I found myself married to a sports fanatic. Somehow, this fanaticism just hadn't really surfaced in the months, umm, weeks, of our pre-marriage romance.

You might think that as the younger sister of five older brothers, I was prepared for Sports Fanaticism. But my big brothers were more into cars and cigarettes and beer and drugs. We were Cubs fans, because my much-loved grandma was a Cubs fan. And being a Cubs fan went well with beer and cigarettes, frankly-- add a hotdog with mustard and relish, and Life Is Good. But football?? Dad watched the Bears on Sundays in the depth of winter when he could laugh at "those idiots" floundering in the snow. And my brothers were far too stoned to care.

So, here I sit, with this man who cares intensely. Who actually just now said, as he moved the chair so he could be right in  front of our rather small tv, "Can you see?"--as if I cared. But he can't imagine I don't care. Which is so sweet. And just so damn weird.

Weird as it is, I'd be ok with it, if it were just LSU football. I mean, I get obsession. Obsession is ok. I have my obsessions. Doctor Who. Bruce Springsteen. And everything Paul Newman has ever done. And I ritualistically, fatalistically, follow the Cubs, as part of my birthright. So, if Keith were simply obsessed with LSU football, really, I'd be ok with that. But, here's the deal: I thought The Game was this afternoon. Because Keith spent the entire friggin' afternoon watching football. But that was other football. Gettin' ready football. Preparatory football.  Foreplay football.

Keith is watching football. LSU vs. West Virginia. God. I hate football.

And yes. I Am A Bitter Woman.

Just fine

I spent the last week in Chicago.

This is Not Good. It's akin to a recovering alcoholic taking a wine tour of southern France, or an addict deciding to vacation in an opium den.

I live my life in Baton Rouge and I am fine. I made my peace long ago. It's the Deep South and it's suburban and it's damned hot and it's provincial and parochial and politically primeval. . . but it's fine.

Until I go back to Chicago. And then it's. . . not fine. Because suddenly there I am, once again. Me. The Me who fits, who belongs, who gets it, who can explain it; the Me-in-embryo who stared out of the windows of our family station wagon during our tri-annual visits from the western suburbs into The City and thought, "I'm going to make this mine" And I did.

And then I lost it.

But I'm fine. I've made my peace. I have a great life. Keith and I enjoy satisfying jobs and the support of good friends in a very livable city. I bike to work along a lake filled with egrets and gigantic turtles and squabbling ducks. I while away the hours in an excellent local coffee shop. We live in, and can afford, an amazing house in a charming, tree-lined, historic neighborhood. We enjoy world-class drama, courtesy of LSU. We have a decent public radio station. A good airport. Easy access to New Orleans. A regenerating downtown. An . . . a . . .

Shit.

Chicago, it is not.

I'm fine.

But who wants to be fine? Just fine? I want to laugh so hard that I pee. I want the el. And the Cubs. And the ferocious wind off the lake. Brick bungalows. Plump parkas and deep dish pizza and hotdogs without the blasphemy of ketchup. Hispanic groceries jumbled against Korean take-outs and Serbian Cultural Centers and Polish bakeries. The flat Chicago aaaaccent. The breathtaking beauty of skyscrapers' reflections in the Chicago River. The startling combination of the accelerated metropolitan pace with genuine midwestern friendliness: "Hey, you OK?" And mostly, that adrenalin rush, that sense of yes, that smooth slipping into a place I always wanted and I always knew was mine.

But I'm home now. In Baton Rouge. It's fine. I'm fine. Just fine.

Playing the Game

It's football season.

Sigh.

Being a non-football fan in south Louisiana during football season is like being a non-gambler in a casino. Basically, you have no point. There is no reason for your existence. Why are you even here?

I should be used to this. Oh hell. I am used to this. The thing is, as used as I am to this, I should be better at this. I should be the world's foremost expert, frankly.

It's not just football. All of my life, I have walked out of step, never fit in, failed to find that common ground. And yet, I'm not weird. Truly. I'm just, I dunno, unfortunate. The first girl in the family, after five boys. An A student in a family of 'why-not-coast-by-with-Ds'. A humanist and pro-unionist surrounded by accountants and small business owners. By the time I was 5, I had embraced feminism (tho' I had no idea that was what it was called) and so guaranteed myself a life on the fringe of my immigrant subculture. By the time I was 14, I realized I was a progressive Democrat in a sea of rightwing Republicans. By the time I was 18, I knew I was a liberal Christian, at odds with the increasingly fundamentalist formulations of family and friends. A Chicagoan in every fiber of my being, I've ended up spending most of my adult life in the suburban Deep South. It's no coincidence, I do believe, that I feel most at home in England, an ipso facto foreign country.

So really, football season should just be same ol' same ol': I'm Here and the Rest of the World is Over There. And yet, it never gets easier: The fact that, come late August, I can no longer participate in or contribute to most general conversations in the supermarket check-out lane or in the church vestibule or in the departmental mailroom. That every time I turn around, the tv channel has been changed to one of a hundred football options (with the sound turned off, mind you--Keith truly makes an effort to respect my non-footballness, and I am grateful). That all the mannequins in the storefront windows suddenly sport purple and gold. That my students cannot be expected to focus in class on Mondays because they're rehashing Saturday's results and of course they can't be expected to show up on Fridays because they're preparing for the next day's game. That I can't even listen to my usual Saturday morning radio rhythm-and-blues buffet without having to endure more talk about "The Game." That I have to coordinate my Saturday shopping to coincide with the traffic patterns induced by said "Game." That even my nail lady can only talk football throughout the fall months.

By mid-October I feel like I'm in one of those old science fiction movies, where the heroine realizes that although everyone around her looks normal, they're actually creatures from another planet. I'm on my own in this town of lunatics, a city-wide insane asylum, yet I'm the one made to feel as if I'm crazy. Case in point: I know a lady, a respectable woman, who cannot pee if the LSU Tigers are playing that day. By late afternoon she's in actual pain but she cannot urinate until the game is over. I kid you not. And yet I'm considered the odd one.

No one else seems to notice that football subverts even the legendary Southern politeness. It's Sunday afternoon. We're sitting on a neighbor's porch, having drinks. "Did you see The Game?" asks my host. "Well, no--" reply I. "Boy, could you believe that pass/drive/tackle/ blahblahblah? I mean, I was saying, no way could they pull that one off, did ya think, and then," he's off and running, utterly oblivious to my muttered, "umm, no, no, didn't see that, didn't actually watch. . ."

Some day, I will snap. Instead of muttering quietly to myself, I will leap out of my seat and I will wrap my hands around my host's neck and I will thump his head against the concrete while shrieking, "NOOOOOO! I DID NOT SEE THE GAME! I do not--ever-- watch The Game! I . DO. NOT. CARE. ABOUT THE FRIGGIN' GAME!!!!" And when I am convicted for murder, folks will say, "Well, I always thought she was strange." "Mmm, hmm, I heard, once, she showed up for tailgating and she was wearing, can y'all believe it, a Chicago Cubs tee-shirt." "'Course, she was, you know, [whisper] from up North. . . "

Football season is such a lonely time.

The Odd Football

I'm not yet 50; I don't think I'm suffering from dementia. But if I'm not demented, then it must actually be true that 1) most Americans really are aware that the World Cup is happening, and 2) some Americans truly care about the results.

This is just plain weird.

Not necessarily bad, mind you. It's good that Americans show some awareness of what's going on in the rest of the world, I think, and actually, tho' I don't know much about it, soccer (aka everywhere else in the world "football") seems an interesting game: lots of action, genuine athleticism, and some truly lovely muscular calves. (Tho', sadly, as in basketball, the adoption of those baggy, knee-length shorts utterly ruins the butt viewing.)

But still, Americans and the World Cup, Americans and pro soccer--very weird.

I remember before we moved to Manchester (England) in 1999 being told that the first question we'd be asked was "Man U vs. Man City?" In other words, which football side do you support, Manchester United or Manchester City? Right, I thought. Like the Chicago Cubs vs. the White Sox. I get it.

Nope. I didn't. It's more like Cubs vs. Sox plus Catholic vs. Protestant plus East vs. West plus Man vs. Woman plus Serb vs. Croatian plus steak-lover vs. vegan. . . .

There simply is no way for an American to understand the passion that soccer--football--arouses in the rest of the world. Take the World Series and add the Super Bowl, the Final Four, the Stanley Cup, Wimbledon and the Master's, and then mix in, I dunno, every celebrity wedding over the past decade. That's the World Cup.

That's football. The real football.

We had no idea.

Before we moved to England. a very good English friend advised us to make sure we immersed Owen (then 8-years-old) in "football" culture. Of course lots of American kids play soccer, but Owen was never interested, and Keith and I, having watched little kids' sports teams wreak havoc on friends' families, were happy not to encourage it.

So we laughed and ignored the advice. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Poor Owen. An 8-year-old boy in Manchester, England who knows nothing about soccer becomes immediately the object of intense curiosity, incomprehension, and outright contempt.

We did try--once we got to England and came to our senses, we did try. Brave little Owen tried. He signed up right away for a neighborhood football team. Before the first practice, I introduced myself to the two dad-coaches, and tried to explain that Owen knew nothing about this game. Oh, right, right, they smiled and assured me, "he'll luv it, luv." Until at some point in the next hour, the ball came within reach of Owen's confused foot, and he kicked it. Toward the opponent's goal. Afterwards, the two coaches came running up to me. One was simply speechless. The other gasped out, "He, he doesn't know the rules! He doesn't even know the rules!" Right, said I, I told you that. He's never seen or played football. And the two of them, really nice blokes, actually, just stared at me. What I was saying had no meaning; it simply did not compute. How could an 8-year-old boy NOT KNOW FOOTBALL?

He learned. We all learned. But still, when the boys' school decreed that all the children were to be delivered to the classroom at 7 am rather than the usual 9 am, so as not to disturb the teachers' viewing of the World Cup match (broadcast from Japan), we were the only parents who thought it slightly, you know, odd.

Sort of like the rest of the world views us, Americans, the U.S. You know, odd.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

The Good:
While home for my mom's 80th birthday extravaganza this past week, I attended a Cubs' game. You know, I'm really a simple soul. Give me a hotdog, a beer (even when the beer is Old Style and cost $7), and a sunny day in Wrigley Field, and I'm ineffably happy. The Cubs don't even have to win (good thing, or I wouldn't get to be happy very often). So, I was happy, and that was good.

But it got even better. When I went to purchase said $7 beer, the woman behind the counter asked me for my ID. Obviously a joke, right? I laughed good-naturedly. But then she looked at me sternly and pointed to a sign: "ALL CUSTOMERS AGED 35 AND UNDER MUST SHOW ID TO PURCHASE ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES." I laughed again. "Yeah, right. I'm almost 50. And you think I'm 35?" And she said, she said, she actually said, "No way!" Yep. That's what she said. No way. Sigh. (She probably goes home and yells, "Honey! You shoulda seen it! I made another old lady so happy today.")

The Bad:
After a year without menstruating, I got my period. Well. Spotting, really. But quantity is not the issue. (Not the issue, heh heh heh. Get it? "issue"? Old-fashioned word for menstrual blood? Oh, never mind. Historians' pun.) No, it's quality. This is not the bright red blood of a fertile, nubile, brilliant young thing. Nope, this is old blood. Rusty looking. It conjures up words like dessication. And shriveled. Dried up. Haggard. Or just plain hag.

"Hag" is bad.

The Ugly:
Hugh and I drove home together. Chicago to Baton Rouge. In a VW Beetle. But that wasn't the ugly part. We had a good time. He ate and drank constantly and so had to pee every 30 minutes or so, but frankly it was sort of nice not to play my usual role of The Person on the Trip Who Always Needs the Toilet.

The ugly came when we got home. As soon as we pulled into the driveway, Hugh transformed from witty (if urination-challenged) companion into Total Shit of a Teenaged Son. Ugly? Umm, yes. But not really, not when compared to my own instant transformation from a reasonable and somewhat good-humored, if rather tired (and desperately in need of a massage) woman into the Mother From Hell. Frustrated, short-tempered, quick to jump from tight-lipped commands to shrieking demands.

A hag, plain and simple.

A hag in need of a hot dog. And a beer. And Wrigley Field.

Who Dat?

It's Carnival season here in south Louisiana. Three Mardi Gras parades in Baton Rouge today and of course several in and around New Orleans--all building up to the frenzy of next weekend and the final explosion on Fat Tuesday, Mardi Gras Day itself. But this year, even Mardi Gras has been swallowed up by a region-wide celebration of breath-taking, mind-boggling intensity: tomorrow, as any sentient American knows, the New Orleans Saints play the Indianapolis Colts in the Superbowl.

I don't do football. I don't get football. But I'll join the party. A party's a party. But this party--this party crosses racial and class divides and in south Louisiana, that's extraordinary.

Still, it's football. I didn't grow up with football. My high school didn't have a football team. My college didn't have a football team. My dad didn't follow football. My brothers didn't play football. They didn't watch football, at least not when they were kids (tho', sadly, they caught the virus in adulthood).

And football is so unelegant, so just plain ugly. Keith says I don't see the beauty of football because I don't understand it. I disagree. I don't really understand soccer (football, actually, at least to the rest of the world), but there's a beauty to the game. I see that. I'm a Chicago Cubs fan, but I'm not one of those baseball academics who explores the mathematics of the game. I just think a hotdog and a beer in Wrigley Field on a spring day is a transcendental experience. And I see the beauty in the game, even if I don't grasp the math. Tennis. I still don't get what it means to break the serve, but an elegant volley is an elegant volley. I get that.

Football. Guy throws oddly shaped ball. Bunch of guys make a big guy pile. Repeat.

But. . .

Those guys do wear really lovely form-fitting uniform bottoms that show off a finely-honed male ass to great advantage--unlike all other athletic uniforms for men. While women's sports apparel gets ever skimpier, the guys slog around in ever-baggier sacks. Basketball players used to wear the cutest bum-hugging little shorts; now they wear gigantic. knee-brushing drapes inspired by skateboarding kids circa 1992. While female tennis players sport midriff-bearing, cleavage-revealing, upper-arm-enhancing little lycra pantydresses, the guys schlep around in what appear to be their grandpas' boxers. But in football, well, there might not be much beauty in the game, but there's often beauty in the butts.

So, I'll go to the party. Watch the commercials. Sing along with the Who. And admire the tight ends.